Electronic Arts is pretty happy with the sales of NHL 12. According to EA, NHL has apparently broken the record for first week sales globally. The game sold 451,000 copies at retail during the first week of release, which equals a 19 percent jump over last year.

It also seems that this year’s edition of the game has seen a 17 percent increase in online games during the first week over last year. NHL 12 had served up over 6.9 million online games during the first week of release.

While this news might not be stellar numbers when you compare to other recent high profile titles that have been released recently, but for the NHL franchise these numbers are big and are a sign that the franchise is growing and adding new players which is good news for EA.